44 Germany. 



doctrine. Prom free republics they become mere corpo- 

 rations imder the supervision of appointed officials, and 

 experience decadence in political as well as material 

 directions. Hence, no increase in city forest took place 

 except through division of the Mark forest in which 

 cities had been co-owners, and through secularized prop- 

 erties of cloisters. 



The worst feature, from the standpoint of forest treat- 

 ment, which resulted from these changes in property 

 conditions and relationship, was the growth of the per- 

 nicious servitudes or rights of user, which were either 

 conferred to propitiate the powerless but dangerous 

 peasantry or evolved out of the feudal relations. From 

 the 16th to the 19th centuries these servitudes grew to 

 such an extent that in almost every forest some one out- 

 side of the owner had the right to use parts of it, either 

 the pasture, or the litter or certain classes or sizes of 

 wood. 



These rights have proved the greatest impediment 

 to the progress of forestry until most recent times, and 

 only within the last few decades have the majority of 

 them been extinguished by legal process or compromise. 



2. Forest Conditions. 



Under the exercise of these various rights and the 

 uncertainty of property conditions, the forest conditions 

 naturally deteriorated continuously \mtil the end of the 

 18th century; the virgin woods were culled of their 

 wealth and then grew up to brush, as is usual in the 

 United States. 



Every forest ordinance began with complaints regard- 

 ing the increasing forest devastation and predicted 



